I knew it would be hard having Dan back in night classes... but I didn't realize it would be this hard. I don't think we've felt this exhausted since Carter was born. The good news is that the end is in sight. The semester will be over in a couple weeks and he'll have his teaching certificate!! In December he will be completely done with his Master of Education. It doesn't really feel like the end is that close... and that's probably because it's really not. Dan will be starting a 2nd program in January. He will be getting a M.A.T. in Reading at Webster University. It's exciting but also a little overwhelming to think about. He still only has 4 classes to complete to get his Theology degree (the whole reason we moved to STL) at Covenant... so hopefully he'll be able to finish that soon as well.

With Dan gone so much we have been enjoying watching and playing all kinds of ball. I do have to say my wiffle ball pitching arm is getting better. Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks.

Carter taking a seat on one of the basketballs that is usually floating around our main floor. We have had to put a serious no bouncing in the house rule in effect (for all age groups) since all this rain started.

Watching Steven's fist game. Carter loved it because 4 trains went right by the field during the game. We could also see several Metro Link trains go by from where we were sitting. What more could an almost 2 year old (I decided a couple months ago that I'm not going to count Carter's age in months any more because I can never remember) ask for.

Steven catching.

With how exhausted we have felt... we are really looking forward to spending time with family this summer. Our first stop will be Hawaii with my side of the family. We were all set in January when we found an amazing deal on tickets. Then a week ago the airline we bought our tickets on went bankrupt. We were able to find new tickets on Saturday... but ended up paying twice as much and we still don't know if we'll get our money back from the original airline.

Speaking of traveling... I don't think I mentioned this... but on our way back from vacation a couple weeks ago the flight attendant stopped me at the door of the plane because she thought I was an unaccompanied minor. That is the other reason I cut my hair. I figured that I need to look older than a high schooler since we live with two. I think I finally look my age (Ellie... this pic is for you :)).

Sporting Steven's baseball gear after practice yesterday. You might mistake him for a high schooler if it weren't for that paci.

Almost a year later (Steven wanted to setting to be exactly the same).

One more reason why I love this stroller...

Let's be honest... Dan was not thrilled about the haircut.  What he really wanted to do was put a google poll on the blog asking how much say a husband should have regarding his wife's hair.  I told him absolutely not!  The whole reason I grew it out was for Locks of Love.  I came home with my pony tail of hair in a cute little bag yesterday.  I need to put it in the mail today because everyone that came through the house yesterday wanted to hold it for some reason.  Last night I went downstairs to turn off all the lights in the basement.  As I was on the stairs heading back up I heard Dan say to Steven... "don't tell Alyssa."  This is what I saw when I walked in the room...

I think Dan is having a hard time letting it go.

Guess who got a haircut! My wife is such a hottie!

Check out Dan's new blog here.

Fred is fast... I mean really, really fast. His times at his first track meet last week beat several state records. We've always known he was an amazing athlete... but this is the first season that we've actually seen him compete (he had a knee injury last year). It's pretty amazing. The bet of the season was whether or not he was going to beat Dan's long jump record from High School. He beat it in his third jump of the season and made sure to call Dan right away. It was pretty funny.

Here are some shots of him at a meet on Friday.

Have I mentioned before that Dan makes everything into a game? If he wants something done in a hurry he'll start to count: "5, 4, 3, 2, 1." By 4 the guys have caught on and whatever chore he is counting for starts to get done. I don't how the chore is more fun if it's a competition... but it is. Tonight the debate was over who was going to unload the dishwasher and who was going to load. Dan picked a couple stuffed rings out of Carter's toy box and gave each of the guys 7 tries to catch the ring while he threw over their head with their back turned. Whoever won got to choose if they loaded or unloaded. It's harder than it looks. Fred won.


Here is Carter this evening. He tries everything possible to keep up.

My (Dan) Evening Time Away Last Week

8 hours of Night Classes
3.45 hours of Parent Teacher Conferences
2.5 hour Board of Education Meeting
2 hours of homework
1.5 hour Faculty Meeting
1 diaper change

Alyssa = Priceless

Last week can only be described as amazing. A week at the beach with two of our favorite people in the world.